08 July 2006

Wanna see something really scary?This belongs to our friend Patty, and she was shooting with us today in Greenville. She had a squib round (primer, but no powder) that ejected the bullet a short distance down the barrel. She then fired another round that struck the bullet already in the barrel. The result was nothing short of catastrophic for her after-market (not a Glock) barrel. I've seen a few KBs, but nothing that has split the barrel the entire length. This one was a doozy. Patty got a little bruise on her left hand, nothing more. Not sure if the rest of the gun was salvageable, but it appeared to be okay. I expect they're going to need to replace a few things (I'd have to replace my underwear...). I also expect they want to invest in a powder-checker. The rest of us hand-loaders are knocking on wood, because this really could happen to anyone.

Safety tip: if the round you just fired doesn't sound just right, go ahead and be paranoid. If there's no bullet stuck in the chamber, you'll get a reshoot if the RO thought so, too. If so, well - you probably just saved your gun. Safety/Range Officers: you should be watching the gun, not the targets. I don't know who the RO was during this incident, but I wonder if he/she recognized what was happening. If you've seen it once, you KNOW when it happens, and you need to react quickly to prevent a problem.

All in all, everyone was okay, but the gun is a bit of a mess. Thank goodness nobody was hurt.

06 July 2006

This article is just for my pal Catfish, who has a fear of at least 3 of these things. He's going on a trip, where he's liable to be in a plane crash and survive crashing into the ocean, only to be eaten by a shark. The shark will throw him up, and he'll wash up on shore, where he'll be kidnapped by terrorists, who will murder him by tossing him off a cliff, which will then cause an earthquake. But he won't care by then.

04 July 2006

Take a moment away from your beer and brisket today, and read the Declaration. Complain if you like about how things are today, but at least consider what got us here in the first place. It's a very powerful document, and helps us today to understand the outrageous wrongs foisted on the Colonies by the King of England. It's proof that people will only live under tyranny for so long before rising up against it.